Category Archives: Psychology
The Mind awards aren’t just annoying and self-congratulatory. They’re actively harmful.
Warning: this post is angrier and swearier than most of my posts. If you’re bothered by that, don’t read any further. If you do read further and come across something you don’t like, don’t come whingeing to me about it. … Continue reading
‘Overcoming Low Self-Esteem’? You’re unlikely to do it reading a self-help book.
I recently acquired a Kindle (gotta love Christmas, the time of the year when wealthy relatives feel unnecessarily guilty about not emailing all year and try to make up for it with consumer electronics). As a result of this I … Continue reading
Velvet Rage
I know, I know, the title sounds like it should be the name of a tribute band performing an easy listening version of ‘Killing In The Name’ at a tea-dance in a faded hotel just off the sea-front at Scarborough.* … Continue reading
In Treatment: a review
I’ve been watching some of the episodes of a TV show called In Treatment. The set up for the show is that Gabriel Byrne is a therapist, Paul Weston, working in New York, and each episode consists of a single … Continue reading
Aethelread v Antidepressants
Quite often, when I write about antidepressants not working for me, I get friendly and helpful comments left by people telling me that they do work, and that all I need to do is stick with it, and eventually I’ll … Continue reading
DSM-V Part 3: Let’s talk about sex, baby
This is the third and final part of my gently-meandering look at the revisions that have been proposed for the 5th version of the DSM. If you’re a real glutton for punishment, part one, which looks at changes to the … Continue reading
DSM-V Part 2: The purpose of a woman
In the first part of my little informal look at the proposed revisions for version 5 of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association, I had a brief glance over the parts of that document that seem … Continue reading
DSM-V Part 1: Especially for me
It was really a touching moment for me. There I was muddling my way through the draft revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association (the document without whose authority psychiatrists daren’t give a patient a … Continue reading
Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent
Reviewing a biography of Beaumarchais, David A Bell, dean of the humanities faculty at Johns Hopkins University, has the following to say: Beaumarchais was a manic character, of the sort who would now be diagnosed at a young age with … Continue reading
They don’t speak for us: the mental health establishment, “stigma” and, now, “casual stigma”
You know something? I really hate this preoccupation with the concept of “stigma” in relation to mental illness. It’s trivial, and middle class – “but, my dear, there’s simply nothing worse that a mental patient might have to face than … Continue reading →